


One in a Million

by AvengersCompound (emilyevanston)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Sweethearts, Childhood Trauma, Circus, Diary/Journal, F/F, F/M, Growing Up, Love, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Multi, Romance, SHIELD, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-01-25 22:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 10,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18583774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/AvengersCompound
Summary: In a World where soulmates exist, and they are one in a million, seven thousand exist for each person, just on Earth.With no way of knowing until you meet them Clint Barton spends his life keeping notes of each one, he meets on his life on the move.  From the boy who came to see the circus one day, to that strange interaction with the Winter Soldier.A Clint x Everyone fic told through Journal Entries.





	1. But How Do You Know?

_June 10th, 1985  
_

_One in a million.  That’s what they say.  There are people out there for you and when you meet them it will feel like your breath has been taken away.  I asked Barney, and he said there were almost 5 billion people in the world.  That means there are five thousand people in the world who are perfect for me.  You’d think that that would mean it was easy to meet your soulmate if there were that many of them._

_So how come my mom got it so wrong?  Dad couldn’t have been her soulmate right?  How could he have been anyone’s soulmate?  How come there are people who meet a couple of theirs and they spend their lives just happy and being better for it and mom gets … him?_

_How are you even supposed to know?  It leaves you breathless?  What does that even mean?  Your soulmate makes it so you can’t even breathe?  Who would want that?_

_~~I just…~~  I don’t get it.  I’ve lived with so many fucking terrible people.   None of whom seemed to be better for their husbands or wives.  Most of the men were violent to everyone around them.  Did they just get it wrong?  Did they have an asthma attack and think they met their soulmate when really it was just they literally couldn’t breathe._

_Buck said that I shouldn’t even think about it. Most people didn’t even meet their soulmates.  That what happens is people just settle cause it’s ‘settle for less’ or ‘be alone’.  Most people think being alone is worse.  But us circus guys know better.  We know that being with the wrong person is much, much worse._

_I dunno… I dunno… Does everyone really have that many?  Are there 5000 people out there right now who if I met them, they would really love me?  Do you just stay with them forever if you meet them?  Is that it?  Is that why people sometimes lived in little groups?  The thought you could never live without them?_

_I dunno if I want that.  I don’t want to be like my mom and stuck with some drunk who beats me because the thought of being without them is like half my soul is missing.  Buck’s right.  Better to be alone. ~~I’ll just~~_

_I’ll keep practicing with the bow.  I’m pretty good now.  And I can ride.  I know how to look after the animals. ~~I know~~  I know they want me to steal too.  But I’ll just make it so the Circus can’t run without me.  Then I can stay because I’m pulling my own weight.  That’s what Tidboldt wants.  He wants me to contribute.  Then, I’ll keep moving.  It won’t matter if there are soulmates out there for me.  I won’t be standing still long enough for them to hurt me._

_-Clint_


	2. Hearts in His Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Square filled: @marvelfluffbingo - Childhood Sweethearts  
> Warnings: Talk of child abuse experienced  
> Synopsis: In a World where soulmates exist, and they are one in a million, seven thousand exist for each person, just on Earth.  
> Clint meets a girl he thinks might be one of his soulmates.

_August 3rd, 1988  
_

_I think it happened.  I think I met one of my soulmates._

_I don’t know how you can know though.  I mean… they say ‘breathless’.  And I mean… it wasn’t that.  But… I saw her in the bleachers.  She was so pretty and I just needed to talk to her.  I did my routine with the horse and the apples and the shooting ropes to bring down cages.  I kept looking up at her.  She looked so amazed the whole time.  Like I was so cool.  I’ve never really felt cool before._

_She came and found me later while I was washing the horses.  We talked.  Her name was Penny.  She had the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen.  She patted the horses as we talked about things.  She wanted to know so much about me.  How old I was.  How long I was in the circus for.  How I learned to ride a horse and use my bow.  If I could teach her._

_I wanted to know about her too.  She was 1 year younger than me.  And okay, I know people say we’re just kids.  We don’t know anything.  We can’t know about love.  But with the stuff I’ve seen. I’m pretty sure no one knows about love until they know about it._

_We were in Ketchum, Idaho.  She said she’d never left.  That her dad ran a general store and her mom did laundry. ~~It just seemed like~~   It was just like me and how I grew up in Waverly.  The towns even kinda looked the same.  I wondered if her dad was like mine was.  I hoped not.  She seemed so … nice compared to me._

_When I put the horses away I took her to see some of the other animals.  Buck yelled at us to get away from the lions so we went for a walk through a field.   I took her hand and they just seemed to fit together.  I swear.  I swear she was one of mine.  She felt right.  She made my stomach squirm in a good way._

_For a while, we just sat under a tree talking.  We talked about so much.  About her school and her family and what she wanted to be when she grew up.  I told her about Barney and the circus.  I - I didn’t tell her everything.  I didn’t tell her about what dad was like.  I didn’t tell her about the stuff the circus did.  The bad stuff.  With the girls and the pickpocketing.  But the fun stuff.  The cool animals and acrobatics and things.  She said she wanted to come with us, ~~but I couldn’t let them do that to her.~~_

_I got her address and said I’d come back for her.  Then we kissed.  It wasn’t much.  Not like I see some people do.  I didn’t stick my tongue in her mouth.  It was nice though.  I wanted to kiss her more.  To stay with her.  I know I couldn’t.  I’m safe in the circus if nothing else.  No one hits me._

_I said I’d write.  I don’t know how she’d ever write me back.  Kinda hard when you’re always moving to get mail.  I’ll come back for her though.  When I’m older.  She’s my soulmate after all._

_-Clint_


	3. What Breathless Feels Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Square filled:  @marvelfluffbingo - Carnival

_November 16, 1992  
_

_God, I look back at the last entry and I can’t believe how naive I was about everything.  Just about everything too.  Not just the fact I thought I would be able to keep writing to her.  But the fact I had a single clue what it was like to meet a soulmate._

_I couldn’t even remember her name until I read the entry back over.  Penny.  Penny my little one-day childhood romance.  What a cliche that was.  She wasn’t one of my soulmates.  She was a simple crush that I forgot about within a few months._

_I did send a few postcards.  I really did think I was in love back then.  But I was a kid and without that feedback loop and with all the other shit I have in my life. I just stopped.  At first, I’d do that thing where I’d forget to do it and curse myself out.  Then I was forgetting and not realizing.  Then I forgot her name._

_I know now she wasn’t a soulmate, because it happened.  I met one this week.   Ben.  I saw him when we were setting up the tents.  He was one of those few sticky beaks that like to come and see the behind the scene stuff when we first get to a site.  He was wandering around with some friends and Jacques told me to go chase them off.  When I locked eyes with him…_

_It was like time stopped.  I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t think straight.  The world slowed and then stopped around me and fazed out of existence.  All that there was him and the beat of my heart.  All I knew was this was my person._

_It’s funny all the realizations you come to when time starts again.  I didn’t realize I was attracted to men until I saw Ben.  Then after time started again, I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed that before.  It seemed so obvious.  Before Ben, I didn’t realize how lonely I had been in this group of people.  Now, I see that I’m really very alone here._

_We ran to each other and grabbed each other’s hands and spoke at once.  “Did you feel -”  “Are you -”  “Was that -”  It was such a strong and undeniable moment.  I can now see why people who haven’t felt it don’t understand, and I understand why the people who have can’t explain it._

_With Penny, I looked for all these reasons we were matched.  With Ben… with Ben, we weren’t at all.  He was as different to me as could be.  The rich son of the mayor of Sewanee.  Privileged and loved.  He wasn’t even conventionally attractive.  A chubby guy with braces and glasses who loved math and just wanted to see the elephant up close.  But to me, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.  He was mine._

_We spent the whole week together.  I still had to work.  I still had the shows to do and the cleaning and whatever.  Hard work is the only way to make sure you still have a place with the circus.  He was just there.  He went to the shows.  He lingered after, talking to me as I shoveled shit and hosed things down._

_Buck took pity on me a few times and we got to actually date.  We did carnival stuff together.  I won him a prize at the shooting gallery, though Bub didn’t want to give it over.  I bought him cotton candy and we shared it while we rode the Ferris Wheel.  When it stopped at the top we kissed and time stopped again.  It felt like I could see better.  Colors were brighter.  Food tasted sweeter.  Being near him fed my very soul._

_We did stuff too.  I mean… I hadn’t exactly been waiting to lose my virginity or anything. ~~I just~~    ~~With what~~   ~~The girls here~~   I never wanted to take advantage of anyone.  I was never really attracted to anyone in the circus like that.  Or the ones I had been, I couldn’t… I couldn’t do that.  And I never really stayed in one spot long enough to meet anyone I wanted to lose it with.  Then Ben.  Having sex with Ben was just the most natural thing in the world.  We’d known each other two days when we tried out just giving each other hand jobs.  Oh my god, it was so much better than when you jerk yourself off.  I don’t know if that’s the case no matter who does it, or if it was because it was Ben.  Or maybe a mix of the two things.  It was good.  So good.  Then the next day I blew him.  He came in my mouth and I swallowed it.  I don’t even know if I really liked the taste of it, I just knew I wanted to keep it inside me.  After he came he blew me and it was even better again.  His mouth was so warm and wet and it felt so good when he sucked.  I have never come so hard before.  It was like I startled him.  He choked a little but he swallowed too, but not before he opened his mouth for me to see._

_The next day… the next day he fucked me.   It hurt but he was gentle.  And then towards the end, it felt good too.  I wanted to do it so many more times.  To switch it up.  To do whatever he asked me to._

_But then the circus moved on._

_Ben asked me to stay.  But how could I?  How could I?  I love him.  But I don’t know him.  I know the circus._

_That’s the other thing I learned about meeting your soulmate.  You still have a choice.  The world is more real when they’re there.  Like without one it’s covered in fog.  But you can choose something else.  I chose the circus because for me it was safe.  It was full of crime and horrible shit I couldn’t stand.  But I knew it’s shit.  It couldn’t hurt me.  If I stayed with Ben I could get hurt.  So I left.  I wonder if I’ll forget his name like I did with Penny?_

_-Clint_


	4. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Square filled: @clintbartonbingo - police

 

_July 16, 1998  
_

_Well, it happened.  I reached my breaking point.  I thought I could just keep going.  Keeping to myself.  Practicing my archery and sword work.  Doing everyone’s hair and makeup.  Cleaning up after the elephant.   If I just did these things they’d leave me alone and let me stay anyway._

_Having met Ben made every day with the circus feel darker.  I could do it though.  Maybe it took more to get that rush, but that’s okay.  I do trick riding while shooting apples out of people’s mouths.  That is enough to get the rush you miss without your soulmate with you._

_Still, I missed him and it made all the shit that went on seem worse.  Harder to ignore because it was harder to find anything good to counteract it.  Then… then they pushed me too far._

_Apparently, it wasn’t enough that I contributed to the circus part of the circus anymore.  I had to contribute to the underground part of it too.  And pick-pocketing wasn’t going to cut it.  They wanted to rob a bank and they expected me to be on weapons._

_They had this big plan involving clown makeup and hypnotism and arrows pinning people to the wall. ~~I couldn’t~~  It was too much.  It was one thing to ignore the bad shit.  It was another to participate._

_I went to the cops.  Dropped off a letter to tell them what was going to happen and went back to the circus.  I told them again and again that I didn’t want to.  That this was too much.  We were going too far.  Buck beat the shit out of me and I didn’t even try and fight back.  I just took it and kept getting back up again the way Barney taught me.  Then they shoved my bow and quiver in my hand and shoved me in the car._

_Thank god the police arrived quickly.  I don’t even care that I got arrested.  I don’t even care that Barney and I were shoved in the back of the same car and Barney gave me a look.  A look that said ‘I know what you did, Clint.  I know it was you and I’m gonna kill you for this.’   I don’t even care that he may actually kill me after this._

_I would take dying in prison over hurting people like that._

_~~I should have stayed with Ben.~~ _

_I’ve already been living in a prison.  Just because it was one I chose to be in, didn’t make it any less one.  It was dark and I hated it.  I hated all of it.  But I trapped myself there because I never hated it as much as I did having some drunk asshole kicking me in the ribs every day._

_Well, I’m out now.  And maybe it won’t get better, but maybe…  Maybe I might actually be able to live with myself._

_-Clint_


	5. The Strategic Homeland Something or Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Square filled: @clintbartonbingo - Nick Fury

_July 22, 1998  
_

_It happened again!  And I don’t think anyone would believe me if I told them.  I don’t even believe me.  I met another soulmate and this time it was one of the cops._

_Well, not quite cops… ~~he was a~~  Let me go back hang on._

_So…_

_It turned out that the shit that Tidboldt had going down was much, much deeper than I could have imagined.  They kept asking me about some ring?  And I think they meant the kind you wear not the circus or crime syndicate kind. I wasn’t sure.  I didn’t know anything about any ring outside of the one in the tent.  I did admit to being the one that gave them the letter.  Someone IDed me, so what was I supposed to do?_

_Then … then some specialist came in.  He came in.   I was cuffed to the desk waiting to be questioned by the cops yet again.  To tell them once again I didn’t know anything and have them not believe me.  Again._

_Only this time two completely different guys came in.  They were dressed in black suits.  The first guy was tall and kinda scary looking and he had an eyepatch.  The other guy… the other guy was looking through paperwork.  He was just an average looking, white guy.  Brown hair that was receding.  He looked maybe 10 years older than me._

_The first guy said he was Director Nick Fury from the Strategic Homeland, something-something.   Fury asked me how I got caught up with the circus.  How much I know about their operations.  Why I’d gone to the cops.  Why I had never left._

_He definitely had a way of intimidating you.  Halfway through the questioning and I was feeling like the dumbest fucking person ever.  Dumb for running away as a kid.  Dumb for thinking the circus was safe. Dumb for ignoring the shit I ignored and dumb for not paying enough attention to what else was happening._

_I knew that I was stuck.  I knew enough that the circus was going to come for me if I testified.  Not enough for all of them to do time.  And not enough that I would get out of doing time.  I was fucked._

_Then the other guy lifted his head and looked at me._

_There was no Nick Fury.  No interrogation cell.  There was nothing except me and Phil Coulson. He reached over and put his hand on mine and we just stared at each other.  I clasped his hands in mine and leaned forward over the table as much as I could.  I wanted to be pressed up against him.  Despite how bleak my outlook was, the world seemed bright for the first time since I left Ben behind._

_And how unlikely was it?  The federal agent and the criminal?  Like one of those dumb romance novels, they sell for 99 cents at drug stores._

_I will never forget what Fury said when that feeling of time starting up again happened.  He looked from Coulson to me and rolled his eyes and said “Are you fucking kidding me?  This guy?”_

_Phil got all apologetic.  He let my hands go and thrust them in his pockets.  Said he could be professional.  That if I needed to be locked up then he wouldn’t stand in the way.  Fury sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose and said he’d look into me._

_So now I guess I wait and see.  I haven’t been a good guy but I want to be.  Maybe what I’ve done isn’t so bad and they decide to… Well, I dunno.  Give me a second chance I guess._

_At least I got to feel that again though.  Maybe if I’m lucky no matter what happens Phil will come back and see me so we don’t have to lose it.  Even if he hates me and we are never a couple.  That feeling is a high worth chasing.  At least I think so._

_-Clint_


	6. Taking Things Slow

_August 2nd, 1999  
_

_I got a year.  I guess that’s okay.  I mean… I ignored shit for too long.  It made me part of it even if I wasn’t actively a part of it.  So I did the time.  It wasn’t so bad.  I spent my life being trained to get up after being beaten down.  I could hold my own.  I was kept away from everyone in the circus, including Barney, which … I guess was good.  The rest of the inmates learned there was no point in targeting me.  I kept working out.  I kept my head down._

_And he kept coming to see me._

_Which to be honest made being in prison better than anywhere else I’ve been.  I mean, we couldn’t do anything.  I wasn’t even totally sure if he wanted to be sexual or not.  Just being around him fed me though.  I guess he took from that too.  We fed each other.  We got to know each other.  Sometimes he’d come with Fury too.  They’d talk about what I planned to do after I got out.  There was talk about joining the strategic whatever it is._

_To begin with, I didn’t know what they could possibly want with me.  Surely the connection with Phil wasn’t enough to recruit someone to be a spy.  I had things to make up for though.  Maybe… maybe there might be more people like me, who could be helped.  The world sucked.  It might be kinda cool to make it suck a little less._

_Besides.  I am not without skills.  I made myself the best archer.  I can use a sword.  I can hold my own in a fight.  I’m good at noticing things.  People.  Maybe I’d be good at the spy stuff._

_Besides.  I’d be near Phil.  I already left one soulmate.  I’d like a chance of making it work with another.  I was lucky to meet more than one.  There are so many people who don’t get that._

_So I got out and they took me from prison straight to the SHIELD recruitment center.  I was signed up, was shown a room and started training._

_And for the first time, Phil and I kissed.  He came into my tiny little room with its twin bed wardrobe and desk and told me what I needed to expect.  He touched my arm as he went to leave and it was like we couldn’t just leave it like that.  He pushed me against the wall and I submitted to him completely.  I wanted all of him.  Everything he could give me.  With Ben, it was just the soulmate connection.  With Phil, we had a year of getting to know each other too.  There was love there too.  I was his.  He was mine._

_~~I think~~   For for the first time ever I actually feel kind of hopeful about what the future holds._

_-Clint_


	7. Worth Waiting For

_November 25th, 1999  
_

_I kinda like this spy shit.  Not gonna lie.  I’m good at it too.  I’m good at looking at a scene and figuring things out.  People underestimate me all the time and I’ve learned to use it to my advantage.  No one really sensors themselves around me.  I guess not going to school has some advantages._

_Fury never falls for it but he definitely sees the advantage in the dumb spy thing.  He’s been pushing me through the system.  Which is really cool.  I think I’m gonna get to go on some actual missions soon._

_Phil and I have been surprisingly restrained really.  All on him.  He wanted to take it slow.  Do you know how hard it is to take it slow when just being next to a person makes you feel more alive?  I mean… I can be professional.  Oddly enough, being around your soulmate at work makes work easier.  Or it does for me.  It’s like you’re seeing colors into the ultraviolet and infrared and everything stands out more.  So I wasn’t just fucking about and not taking things seriously even if that’s how I pretended to be.  It was in our personal time that I struggled._

_~~Not that I’d ever~~ _

_He said he just wanted not to just do this because of the soulbond.  He didn’t want to just feel like he needed me.  He wanted to know we could share a space.  He wanted to want me too._

_~~I guess~~   I mean I get it.  Maybe that is what happened to my mom.  She got bonded to a man to the point where being near him made the world itself seen better but her life much much worse._

_So we took it slow.  As much as we wanted to just rip each other’s clothes off, we just cuddled and kissed and held hands and talked.  He is so cute.  He has a Captain America collection and he became a spy because of Cap’s connection to whatever this place was based on.  It’s all he ever wanted to be and he did it.  Just like that._

_Then when it finally happened… oh my god.  It was better than anything.  Anything.  It was like this extension of the connection mixed with that base need.  He took complete control and I submitted to him willingly.  It didn’t matter who was fucking who, I was his._

_I love him.  I have such trouble saying those words.  The ‘I love you’ ones.  He says them easily and I envy it.  Because I do love him.  I love him so much.  I am one of those lucky people who have met their soulmate and we fit._

_-Clint_


	8. Linked to the Darkness

_May 11th, 2003  
_

_Something weird happened.  Really, really weird._

_In fact, I don’t even know if weird is a strong enough term for how monumentally fucked up I feel right now and I don’t know what to do about it or how to feel about it or who even to tell about it.  I don’t even understand it myself.  How could anyone else?_

_We went out on a mission.  One of those, ‘we heard there was someone going to kill you, so we’ve come to kill them first’ type missions.  Political bullshit.  I don’t know.  Whatever it was there was a guy who was gonna be assassinated and I was supposed to stop him._

_I did.  But… I felt it._

_I had spotted him quickly and taken a shot.  Unfortunately, he had spotted me and avoided it.  Doesn’t happen often.  Always impressive when it does.  He’d stalked out of the shadows, dark hair falling over his empty eyes.  In what I can only describe as leather fetish wear.  Muzzle and everything.  We made eye contact and froze._

_Time stopped but it was off.  Fuzzy.  Muddled.  I knew he was one.  He was a soulmate.  But the pull felt like it was being interfered with.  Like it was coming through static.  We just stared at each other.  I don’t know what was going through his head obviously, but for me, it was like this weird push/pull thing happening.  I wanted to rush to him and take his hands and feel that connection we had.  At the same time I knew that if I did, I’d end up dead.  That standing like this staring at him had a high chance of me ending up dead.  I knew who this was.  I had thought he was just a ghost story to scare new cadets, but I knew.  This was the Winter Soldier.  I was soul bonded to HYDRAs most famous assassin._

_Thankfully I reacted first and loosed one of my exploding arrows at him.  He dodged it, but it knocked him over and I came for him in the time it took for him to recover._

_It is really weird to be fighting someone you are bonded with.  It feels wrong and goes against every natural instinct.  I could tell it was a struggle for him too.  His eyes… I am going to dream about those eyes.  Not the good kind of dream either.  They looked like I was betraying him.  Confused and in pain.  Yet he wasn’t holding back.  He would kill me even if he didn’t want to._

_I am now sure that my parents weren’t soul mates though.  There is no way you could hit someone you are bonded with unless you absolutely had to.  Or… I’m sure … I’m sure that they were doing something to him.  Controlling him.  Each hit I placed on him tore through my head and my heart.  You can’t do that to someone you really love._

_He eventually broke free from me and ran.  I chased and called for him to stop.  Told him I’d help him.  It didn’t help.  He was fast and got away from me._

_At least I stopped the assassination I guess._

_I really don’t know what to do.  I’m so shaken. ~~Do I tell Phil?~~   How do I live with this knowing he’s out there and he’s supposed to be one of mine?_

_-Clint_


	9. A Thing for Spies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Square filled:  @clintbartonbingo - Maria Hill

_September 9th, 2005  
_

_Four.  I’ve now met four of my soulmates.  It’s so fucking bizarre.  I looked up the population of the world and going off that I should have about 6,500 of them.  But that does mean there are still basically six and a half billion people who aren’t my soulmate.  How has this happened that I’ve come across so many?_

_I sometimes wonder about Ben.  Was that it?  Is he now destined to be lost and without that bond for the rest of his life?  Was it worse that he met me and I left or better that he got to experience what it felt like?_

_The soldier still sticks with me too.  I feel like I should have done more.  Maybe he’d never be right, but he was mine in a small way and I just let him go back to whatever it was that was making his eyes look so dead.  Was his life worse now?  That’s probably kinda arrogant thinking.  Probably was already as bad as it can get and one 10 minute fight with a guy you felt nice being around won’t change that._

_I’ve been happy though.  I really love Phil.  We are quite different people really.  He is neat and organized and usually completely together and well… I’m me.  But he’s also a sweet dork who I love listening to talk.  I know I frustrated the hell out of him but I also know that there’s always affection there when he’s telling me off for something._

_I thought it would always be the two of us and then Maria Hill started working with Fury._

_God, what can I say about Hill?  She is so smart and so resourceful and sexy.  I have never had that soulmate connection with someone who I also just really wanted to do as well.  God, she would kill me for thinking shit like that though.  She’s quite scary._

_The smart thing though.  Jesus.  How can I be bonded with two people who are just as smart as Hill and Coulson?  She is so young still and moved through SHIELD so fast that Fury took her on as his right hand while most were still getting stupid test missions.  He has also kinda adopted her the way he did with me and Phil.  Be funny if Fury has some dad bond with everyone on the same soulbond track.  I can see why he did though.  She’s just… she sees shit.  She knows what’s up right away.   She knew right away I am not as dumb as I pretend to be and called me out on it.  And unlike me, who never got the schooling, she has it too.  She’s… she’s a genius._

_God, I am not worthy of that bond.   Phil got it too.  So now I’m wondering if all soulmates are bonded.  Could I start a commune with my six and a half thousand people and we’d be riding high for the remainders of our lives?_

_We need to figure out what to do though.  We have the bond.   That’s certain. The time the three of us were in the room together for the first time almost felt like I’d taken heroin or something.  The world was dialed up to 11.  It’s backed off a bit now.  We haven’t done anything at all with her.  She says she’s non-commitment.  Which could maybe work.   I’m not sure about Phil.  Even still… she’ll get the boost when we work together.  So that’s good._

_God, I really like her though. I’d never hurt Phil.  Not ever.  But I’m glad I know her._

_-Clint_


	10. Creating New Boundaries

_November 11th, 2005  
_

_Phil and I have both started sleeping with Maria.  Me more than Phil.  I think he’s not as into casual sex.  I quite like it turns out.  Also, Maria has been showing me things I didn’t even imagine I’d be into.  I am very, very into them though.  She’s extremely dominant and it turns out, I’m really, really submissive ~~and quite into humiliation.~~_

_I worry I’m gonna hurt Phil.  He was the one that suggested it.  We even have threesomes from time to time.  So it’s not like I’m running around cheating on him.  I didn’t ask to sleep with Maria.  I just know how giving a person he is and I worry he suggested it because he saw that I was looking at her that way.  Or she was looking at me that way._

_It’s weird.  I know polyamory is a thing.  I know open relationships are a thing.  I think they’d work for me.  Even outside of Maria.  She still sleeps with randoms and she says it’s fun.  Not having a connection during sex she said, allows her to explore different parts of it.  I can see what she’s saying.  You might be willing to let go more if you knew you weren’t gonna see them again.  That’s not Phil though.  I don’t want to lose him.  I don’t want to hurt him.  We need to talk about it and I don’t know how to bring it up._

_How do you bring up that up?  How do you tell your soulmate there’s more you want to explore outside them and not have them seem not enough?  He is enough.  If he asked me right now to stop I would.  He wouldn’t do it though.  When it comes down to it really, while I might be ~~a bit more of a slut~~  more promiscuous than him, we both put the relationship second.  He’s married to the job.  SHIELD is everything to him.  I know that.  It’s fine too because I love SHIELD.  It just means we spend a lot of time apart and while he is okay with that, I wanna explore things when he’s not there.  Maria being around has shown me that._

_I feel like I fall on the middle of a scale with them sexually.  They’re both complete work nuts, which … god when they’re together it’s all shop talk, constantly.  Drives me crazy.  Sexually though, Phil is all about being with people he trusts, Maria is about not being tied down.  I think I might just be about trying things._

_Will Phil understand that?_

_-Clint_


	11. What Happened in Budapest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bingo Fill:  @clintbartonbingo - Budapest

_May 19, 2006  
_

_Six!  Is it because I travel so much that I’ve met so many?  I mean I guess if you lived in New York then you’d have six right there with you, so there’s a chance you’d meet a few.  I can’t believe I’ve met six of them._

_This was another weird one.  I’d been sent to Budapest with Hill.  We were supposed to kill a Russian Assassin called the Black Widow.  I don’t really love that kind of work, to be honest.  There’s gotta be a better way right?  Aren’t you supposed to get a trial before you’re executed?_

_Fury said it was like putting down a rabid dog, but I don’t like that analogy at all.  I mean, if I’m defending myself and there’s not another way, but to just put an arrow through someone when they aren’t even given the chance to be better people.  I mean, I had a chance, right?_

_Anyway, that was the job.  We knew she was going to be at a gala held at the Buda Castle. I was supposed to be on rooftop sniper duty while Maria flushed her out.  Only she ate something and it completely knocked her out.  That nasty ‘both ends’ thing that no one wants to talk about.  So I went and got a tux and tried to blend in with a bunch of people I couldn’t relate to at all.  I knew immediately who she was when I saw her.  The red hair and the way she held herself.  She was standing alone but surveying a group of men.  I wondered how I might get her somewhere that I could do what I needed to do.  Did I try and hit on her.  Did I corner her in a dark hall and just shoot her.  I was all thrown off not being in the sniper role._

_I was just considering my next move and she turned around.  We locked eyes and the world around us disappeared.  God, she was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and yet even in that moment between breaths where we got trapped, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu.  I had another soulmate on the wrong side of the fight.  I had been sent to kill yet another person I had bonded with.  I was going to need to feel that horrible grating push when we fought.  I dreaded the feeling of her dying because of me._

_When time started again she seemed to shiver and then slowly approached me.  I don’t know why I let her.  She could have gutted me where I stood and I knew she’d done that sort of thing before.  I relied on the bond.  I think it saved me.  It saved everything in the end._

_She leaned in close to my ear and whispered ‘I need your help’._

_It turned out she had been raised in this orphanage for baby assassins or something.  She wanted out only her handlers were there.  She gave me all these names of other big bads who were all in the room.  I sent a message to Fury and he sent me back these files of ~~these fucking~~  people who were way up the bad guy chain.  I looked around the room and they were all there.  All of them._

_What followed was the craziest shootout I’ve ever been in.  Me and Nat.  Nat… that’s her name.  Natalia Romanova.  Me and Nat were back to back just fighting.  We captured and took down so many people plus we saved the guy she was supposed to kill.  I have never felt as good or proud of myself ever in my life.  It was such an adrenaline rush and when the rest of the SHIELD agents and the Hungarian police had come came to clean up they were congratulating me on the huge win I’d made._

_Hill was there overseeing things even though she was still sick too.  She had that moment with Nat too and I wondered if Phil would as well.  I wondered what it would mean either way.  I really don’t know what’s going to happen from here out.  Nat got arrested.  Like… understandably really.  She’s killed a lot of people.  I’m gonna try and talk Fury into giving her the chance he gave me._

_I think she’s worth it._

_-Clint_


	12. My Best Friend

_September 23rd, 2006  
_

_Natasha Romanoff is my absolute best friend.  Is it possible that you can have one of your soulmates be more soulmate than any of the others?  I know that sounds wrong.  Maybe it’s just that soulmates can fulfill different needs for you.  No two people are matched exactly.  That would be boring.  Maybe Phil, Maria, and Nat all just hit different parts of me that I need?_

_Or maybe it’s not that at all.  Maybe it’s just that they’re different people and not clones and each on their own would be enough but together it’s even better still.  Whatever it is, there’s something about Natasha, the shared past abuse, the fact she’d been the bad guy too, I dunno.  I just open up to her quicker than with Hill and Phil.  I can’t even really explain why.  She still looks at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind anytime I do anything she thinks is dumb.  Like Hill, she’ll even smack me over the back of the head for it.  But maybe because she knows what it’s like ~~I feel safe~~._

_So.  Maybe I should write about what’s been going on with her.  That’s why I started doing this right?  Trying to make sense of soulmates and shit.  Nat came back with us to the US.  Because she wasn’t arrested like I was she wasn’t made to do time, but she did stay locked up at SHIELD for a while.  Fury went and spoke with her every day and then one day she was let out and put under Phil’s watch.  She moved in with us.  She told me she had a ledger and it was full of red and she had to wipe it out._

_So she started working for SHIELD and we all started getting closer.  Everyone in SHIELD started calling Phil, Maria, Nat and me Fury’s Angels. ~~Which is really dumb actually because there are four of us.~~   Phil seemed to be getting better with the polyamory stuff.  He was seeing the different things the way I was too.  He even met someone else.  A cellist in Seattle.  The four of us were happy.  It was weird because it was like at least for, Nat, Hill and I - we were learning what that really meant.  Which, given that we had no basis for what a happy relationship was, it left everything open to us._

_And I was.  Am.  And I think they are too._

_Nat and I though…  I can’t quite explain it.  Maybe … maybe there are different kinds of soulmates.  Like how Fury just became all of our surrogate dad.  Nat’s my best friend soulmate.  The thing is… the thing is…_

_I told her about the soldier.  I’ve never told anyone about that.  Not anyone.  And she knew who I was talking about.  She said she knew him from the Red Room.  That they had the bond too and the Russians had used it to control him when nothing else could.  That it had hurt her every time they tortured him.  That sometimes she’d see the man he once was, start to come up for air and her heart would feel like it was being torn out._

_I don’t know what to do.  I feel like I need to help.  But how do you find a ghost?_

_-Clint_


	13. The Big Week

 

_June 5, 2011_

_So the weirdest fucking thing happened.  For the past few years, Phil’s been keeping his eye on Tony Stark.  Yes, that Tony Stark.  Pretty much ever since the moment he came out of that cave.  Fury has a thing about tracking down ~~superheroes~~  enhanced people or something for this initiative.  I dunno.  It’s all super secret I guess.  Anyway, he’d been worried about Stark’s behavior and sent Nat in undercover as Virginia Potts assistant._

_So it was just me and Hill alone in DC until I get this call saying Phil was going to meet me out in New Mexico because this Excalibur style Hammer fell out of the sky and I had to go with him in case shit went down._

_So, I go and we set up a temporary facility around it.  Then this huge blond guy attacks and I’m told to take him out.  Like with Nat it didn’t feel right and eventually, Phil thought it too.  We arrest him and I go down and check him out and not a word of a lie, I feel the pull._

_Only it’s different.  Yes, I still feel breathless.  Yes, the world stops.  It’s more than that though.  It feels like my soul is pulled through space itself.  It was like I suddenly saw how small I was in the universe.  Which you would think would be horrible.  It wasn’t though.  It was liberating._

_So, blah blah blah.  All this stuff happens.  Phil says this guy thinks he’s Thor.  Yes, that Thor.  That he might be from space.  So we let his friends take him and it’s crazy.  These other Viking dudes show up.  Then a huge metal monolith thing.  This guy is actually Thor.  Actual honest to god, god Thor.  Only he’s not exactly a god.  He’s an alien.  Which opens up a whole bunch of other questions.  If there’s one in a million soulmates for you, does that include the whole universe?_

_Am I soul bonded with lizard beasts and weird gelatinous globs?  How many are there?  Do you get 1 out of a million from each planet or can they all be on one planet?  Is there a person on earth soul bonded with every single person on earth because that’s how their selection was allocated?_

_The other weird thing was Phil never felt it.  He was around Thor much more than I was and nothing.  He was just some guy.  I had assumed that everyone shared their soulmates if you were bonded.  That whatever was right for you about someone, was right for the other people who you were right for.  It was something you shared.  I guess not._

_Not that it mattered in the end.  He left.  Went back to Asgard ~~or whatever~~.  But it’s weird.  It’s weird to think the whole universe is open to this.  I wonder if the one in a million is bullshit.  Or maybe it’s not but there are criteria like compatible parts and intellect?_

_I wonder if I’ll see him again._

_-Clint_


	14. When the Bond isn't Shared

 

_June 6, 2011  
_

_Things keep getting weirder and weirder.  Nat and I arrived back home at about the same time and it turns out the same thing had happened with her and Stark only Phil hadn’t felt it either.  She’d kept it professional and given Stark’s self-destruction that was happening, she didn’t think it was the best move to try anything anyway.  She’d said that she’d been sure that he and Potts were bonded too, but he was too sure that he was about to die to do anything about that either.  So she’d just done her job and come home._

_This soulmate thing is so messy.  No wonder people get hurt. ~~But like~~  How would Natasha Romanoff, Russian orphan, raised in an assassin school ever normally meet up with some American circus freak?  Yet here we are.  Then I’m matched with a Norse god?  Why have soulmates you have no chance to be with?  What’s the point of your perfect people being so far away for you?_

_If it wasn’t for the circus and SHIELD I might not have ever met one of them.  I’d be stuck in nowhere, Iowa and I’d never have met any of them.  That must be the most common thing, right?  That you just never get the opportunity to meet the people your best matched to?   It’s literally just been the fact that I move around so much and do such weird things that I met them._

_Did I luck out meeting them because of my job or is it the way my life ended up why I was matched to them in the first place?  If it’s the second one can you become unbonded?  I’d always heard your soulmate was just your soulmate.  But if you are a product of your experience, maybe that can change too?_

_I am also so interested in the fact that two people can be bonded together and yet have soulmates they don’t share._

_Oh also, this big green monster rampaged through New York.  Fury has gone to check it out.  It’s been a weird week._

_-Clint_


	15. The Avengers Initiative

_July 27th, 2012  
_

_~~Okay~~ _

_~~So~~ _

_This year has been fucking crazy.  After the stuff with Tony Stark coming out as Iron Man and then Thor, there was an incident in New York with this guy who turns into a big green monster thing and this other guy who turned into an even bigger grey guy who just trashed the place._

_Weirdly Fury got really excited.  Kept going on about the Avengers Initiative.  Kept bringing up some woman named Carol but wouldn’t tell us who she was.  I’m pretty sure he wanted to start up a crime-fighting superhero group.  When Thor disappeared and Banner (That’s the one who turned into the green guy) went back on the run, not showing any sign of wanting to be found, and then Stark kinda was Stark and not really looking like he’d be a team player, Fury just gave up on the idea._

_Then like a year, later a few things happened, Phil, Hill and I were sent to guard this Tesseract thing.  It was a door to the other side of the galaxy or something.  The recovered it from the ocean when they were looking for Captain America back in the day._

_Which leads to the first thing happening.  They found him.  He was frozen in the plane he crashed.  It didn’t take too long to wake him back up again.  Phil was delighted, let me tell you.  Though he hadn’t gotten to meet him yet.  I’m not gonna lie, part of me wondered if Cap would have soulmates anymore, or if his pool had all died off already.  Or would he be paired with people who were in their 90s and on their deathbeds and that was it.  I wondered if when he opened his eyes he’d see Phil and they would feel the pull and that would be it.  Phil wouldn’t have time for me anymore._

_~~Oh god, I wish that’s what had happened.~~ _

_Then the Tesseract activated and everything went to shit.  Thor’s brother Loki stepped out of that door.  He did something to my mind. ~~It was like~~_

_It felt like he manipulated the soulbond feeling.  I definitely didn’t have one with him.  I felt no pull before or after he took my mind.  But when he put that staff on my chest everything got brighter.  Clearer.  Only none of the clarity was my own.  All I wanted to do was please him.  I would have done anything for him.  Which is a little bit like what it’s like to have a soulmate only not at all.  With your soulmate, you want to give them anything you can, do anything you can to make them happy.  Your morals don’t change though.  Which is kinda why they’re your soulmate I guess.  You know they’d never ask you to do anything you wouldn’t want to._

_With mind control, it was like he turned me into the person who would do anything he needed._

_I killed people.  My friends.  People with family.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t care about Coulson or Hill or Nat.  When Loki had me attack the Helicarrier I was happy for it to crash with them in it.  I could still feel our bond.  Fuck, I could feel it as I was fighting them.  It hurt so much but Loki wanted them dead and so dead was what they needed to be._

_Then Nat hit me in the head and I woke up and he was._

_It felt like something had been torn out of me._

_~~I know~~  You’re supposed to prepare for these things.  We’re in a dangerous job.  Losing someone is likely.  I just thought if it was any of us, it would be me._

_What’s worse is, when I woke back up there was so much shit going on I couldn’t process it.  I was feeling that breathless feeling so much I couldn’t tell who was setting it off.  I still am not sure if it was just Nat and Hill’s pull going off again because I was now myself.  Or if it was one of the others.  I have a vague feeling that it was triggered when I wasn’t me by one or more of the others and I have no way of checking because it’s supposed to happen one time._

_There were fucking aliens falling out of the sky.  Then it was fighting and fighting and Stark nearly died. ~~Oh right, I didn’t say who the others were.~~_

_So my potential new soulmates are Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Bruce Banner.  Thor was there too.  It was strong and weird and all I can think was Phil was dead and I’d never get to fall asleep wrapped in his arms again.  I was never going to wake up to the smell of coffee and bacon because he woke up way earlier than me and he liked the look on my face when I saw he was cooking breakfast._

_Everyone scattered at the end.  Nat said I should go back with her and Hill to DC.  I couldn’t do it.  That was our house together and I couldn’t go back.  I couldn’t go back to the home I shared with him and Phil not be there._

_So I am at my brother’s place.  It’s been a while.  I guess he kinda forgives me.  The world is darker and I’m not sure if it’ll stay that way._

_-Clint_


	16. All Roads Lead Home

  
_October 13th, 2014_

_I stayed with Barney on and off for a couple of years.  I still did SHIELD stuff, but it wasn’t the same without Phil there.  Hill was acting weird too.  Like she was keeping something from me.  She wouldn’t admit to anything though.  I still saw her and Fury and Nat though.  Sometimes Nat even came and stayed with me at Barney’s place.  We’d just go and get away from everything and be us._

_She told me things about what happened when ~~I was not me~~  being forced under mind control that maybe makes sense.  Or… I dunno.   ~~Maybe it doesn’t at all~~._

_I mean I remember what happened.  I’m more talking the soul bond stuff._

_She was on a mission in Russia at the time Loki came through the door.  Then she sort of met everyone one by one.  Bruce Banner she had the bond with.  Steve Rogers too.  Thor.  Phil didn’t get it with anyone.  Not even Steve which makes me really sad for him.  Before he died if he had known that, maybe he could have been that little bit happier.  Hill had it with Rogers, but not anyone else._

_Nat said with so many in one spot at first it felt like there was too much input.  It was like staring directly at the sun.  Then when eyes adjusted she worked with such focus and clarity that she felt indestructible.  I could relate to that feeling at the end.  After I came back to myself that is.  So maybe I had the bond too?_

_I’m a little scared to find out, to be honest._

_The thing is though, shits been going down. Tony Stark was attacked and went missing for a little while before showing up again and blowing up all his suits.  His Mansion in Malibu was destroyed.  Also, he had the arc reactor removed from his chest._

_SHIELD fell too.  The soldier turned up again.  Nat said that he was friends with Rogers when they were kids.  Which is so weird.  There’s some destiny at play here isn’t there?  Like Phil isn’t bonded with people he just meets and then he dies.  Maria bonds with some but starts acting cagey.  Nat and I bond with some assassin who was friends with someone else she’s bonded with when he was a kid._

_It’s weird ‘cause most people never even meet one soulmate and I’ve met so many and yet the things we have in common are why we were pushed together.  Had I had a normal upbringing and stayed in Waverly.  Inherited dad’s butcher shop.  Would I never have met any of my soulmates or would they never have been my soulmates in the first place?  Was this always the plan for us?  Are we all just acting out a script we have no control over or do these people we bond with only become that when we’ve lived a life that’s formed us as people that can be bonded with like that?_

_If I saw Ben now, would he still be my soulmate as the rich kid in Sewanee who lived a sheltered life?  Or did he leave too?  Is he some kind of international delegate now who is all entangled in the spy life too?_

_I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to answer that._

_In the meantime, with the fall of SHIELD, I’m unemployed.  Stark has offered me a job with what he’s continuing to call the Avengers.  Nat’s taking it.  So I think I will too.  Guess I’ve hidden long enough._

_-Clint_


	17. 8 in New York

 

_January, 21st 2015  
_

_It’s all of them._

_I moved into the tower with the other’s after Thor showed back up.  The staff that Loki had when he mind controlled me had gone missing and it was important for some reason.  So he’d come back and we all gathered back together._

_Tony had turned Stark Tower into this special base of operations for the Avengers.  We all had apartments that he’d designed for us.  For him this was important.  That connection.  He saw us a way to focus his energy into the thing that he saw made up for the bad he’d put into the world before.  More than that though, I think he saw us as family._

_I can understand why.  That pull.  The connection.  The way the world is.  It’s intoxicating.  And Tony is like me.  Piece of shit dad and all.  Maybe his dad didn’t beat him.  Maybe he didn’t die until Tony was in his 20s.  He still knew what it was like to feel alone.  He knew how dark the world was when you’re traversing it unloved and unwanted.  Finding people that you share that bond with, even if you don’t know each other well.  You crave it._

_Plus he’d had a bunch of shit go down that meant his home in Malibu got blown up._

_I don’t quite know if everyone is bonded with everyone or not.  I sure seem to be though.  Even the new guy Sam who is such a blast to be around.  It’s so weird.  We work better for it.  When we’re out and working on a mission we’re like a well-oiled machine.  There’s banter and laughing and meanwhile, we’re taking down these HYDRA bases.  It’s like we can see everything so clearly._

_We haven’t all explored sex though.  It’s weird. I’ve heard of a few little communes of people who all share soulbonds popping up.  They are so rare though and honestly, I’m not even convinced that’s what they are.  They seem to be brainwashed more than soul bonded.  And I’d know.  I’ve been both._

_I want to.  I love sex and seeing how people like to play.  God, do they all play differently too.  Nat who loves to test every boundary that I have.  Thor who just likes to have as much fun as he can.  Sam who I just end up laughing my ass off with and not at all being any less turned on.  Tony who is so much like me and we get someone else to join us and order us to do things to each other._

_Steve and Bruce are still unknowns.  We have the bond but I think Bruce gets overwhelmed by it.  He gets flustered easily and backs out.  Steve… I think he just doesn’t quite understand what’s happening.  I guess things were different back in the day.  You chose one and that was that.  He might have even already chosen._

_It’s okay though.  If they want to do stuff with me, I’ll be here.  If not, I still really like being around them.  We still feed that need we have.  That’s enough.  Maybe there’s too much going on in the tower anyway._

_-Clint_


	18. What I Know

_September 29th, 2016  
_

_Some more shit went down.  When is it not, really?  I guess that’s what happens when you decide you’re going to save the world.  We’ve all just taken to going where we feel like.  It’s good being around each other.  We are better people together.  When we aren’t we make mistakes.  So now without really even talking about it, we’re just this group of people who just try and do the right thing._

_It’s funny too.  ‘Cause the thing that happened really only happened because Tony was too scared to tell most of us he had this idea to build some AI to help us protect the earth.  I kinda wonder what would have happened if he’d just come and sat down and talked to us about it._

_So, we find this scepter and Tony uses it to make this robot.  The robot is crazy.  Wants to destroy everyone to save them.  As we go to fight him we find these twins that HYDRA was experimenting on. ~~This thing happened~~   ~~It’s weird~~  People talk about it but it’s not really a thing that’s…  ~~It’s just~~_

_Okay, so you know how people will say they meet their children and they just love them unconditionally?  Like people seem to think that is an innate thing that happens to all parents.  I know for a fact that’s not true.  My dad didn’t love me.  I’m not even the only one in the group that that’s the case for.  Steve’s dad was the same.  Bruce’s.  Tony’s probably.  So it’s not just a thing you feel when you meet your own kid._

_Here’s what I know for sure.  You can love people who are not your soulmates.  I think you could even successfully have a loving relationship with one.  You just wouldn’t get that feeling like the whole world just gained a new layer._

_Meeting your soulmate isn’t love at first sight.  It’s just a bond that you have that makes loving them easier.  It makes it so those annoying little things that might otherwise make someone unbearable, kind of cute.  You still gotta work at it.  You still have to be mindful of their feelings.  You can still choose not to be with them._

_People bond with their children the same way only it’s a different feeling.  It’s is love at first sight and it’s deep and protective and nurturing.  There’s another layer to it.  Like you know at some point they’re gonna not need you and they may not even like you very much, but you’ll love them anyway. You know you need to help them through the world._

_Giving birth to a kid or having them related to you isn’t the thing that gives you that bond._

_I felt it for the Maximoff twins._

_It’s so weird too because they’re in their 20s.  They don’t need parents.  But maybe they needed something because of what they’d been through.  I think maybe that’s what happened to Fury with me and Nat and maybe the other Avengers too.  We were lost and needed guidance and he saw us and felt that bond._

_So we got rid of the robot and now here we are.  A whole bunch of parents and their new kids making a promise we’re going to protect the world.  And maybe we won’t always get it right, but we’re better people together than we are apart.  I love them all I know that.  I hope one day we can find Bucky Barnes and bring him home too.  He needs us.  And I think we need him too._

_Until then, we’ll keep looking and we’ll keep protecting the world and if we find anyone else with the bond we’ll take them in too._

_I don’t actually think everyone has a soulmate.  Some people’s souls are too dark and twisted and all they want is to lash out and cause everyone else pain around them.  I also think the one in a million thing is wrong.  They’re rare, but how rare depends on the person.  Maybe there’s some destiny involved but who you are over your life makes a difference.  Finding those puzzle pieces is hard but if you’re a good person, they’re out there for you.  Just might be on a whole other planet.  If you’re lucky to find them, you should make the room for them though.  It’s worth it._

_-Clint_

##  _~ END ~_


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